View Video of Today’s Ceremony
View Photos from Today’s Ceremony
Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Chair and CEO Janno Lieber today attended the MTA Police Department (MTAPD) Promotion Ceremony at Grand Central Terminal’s Vanderbilt Hall. Lieber, along with MTA Chief Safety and Security Officer Patrick Warren and MTA Police Chief John Mueller, delivered remarks to the 45 MTA police officers who received promotions with family, friends and colleagues in attendance.
A transcript of Chair Lieber’s remarks appear below.
MTA Chair and CEO Lieber: Thank you everybody for being here. Chief Mueller, welcome to the first of these promotional ceremonies. We appreciate and acknowledge the leadership and energy you've already shown in your short time in the department and look forward to our continued partnership with you and the entire MTAPD leadership. It's a pleasure to be here today.
I want to congratulate all of you on your hard earned and well-deserved promotions. Especially Henry “Hank” Micyk, who as a member of the executive protection detail has had the booby prize of having to spend a lot of time with the Chairman in the last year. So, congratulations, Hank.
Your promotions are not only a recognition of the great work that you've done to this point, but an expectation that you, each of you, will continue to deliver for the millions of folks the MTA serves every day. As everyone knows, everyone in this room especially, policing is not for the faint of heart. But that's not an issue for this group. You're here because you exemplify the qualities that we look for in police leadership: integrity, honesty, courage, perseverance.
You are role models for your fellow men and women in uniform, as well as future officers considering this career. Like the MTA’s frontline operational workers, you showed up to work, day in and day out, throughout the pandemic. Kept going through the stirrings of our regional recovery, still underway, and now, have arrived with all of us at a moment when safety is top of mind for everybody in the region. The work of our police force has never been more important. It is, as I always say, the region, this region, because our density cannot survive without first class mass transit. It is like air and water for the New York region. Creating a safe and secure environment is a requirement, a nonnegotiable requirement, for first class transit service. That is our mission, and that is your mission.
You are part of an all-hands-on-deck effort that involves working with partners who are operating mass transit: conductors, train operators, station agents, the whole team, riding the system, and also working with a new entry in this all-hands safety effort which is unarmed but uniformed gate guards that we're placing around the system in an effort to start to push back on the epidemic of fare evasion. They’re unarmed, they're not enforcement agents, but they are additional eyes and ears, and they're an addition to this whole effort that we're setting in motion.
Now this is all possible because of a strong partnership between the state, the city, and the MTA. Whatever your politics, that's what we need. It's been going on since the beginning of this year. When I first came here, let's say I left a lot of unanswered messages at City Hall. But no more, starting in January when Mayor Adams and Governor Hochul teamed up to prioritize mass transit safety.
So, on behalf of all our customers and the entire MTA, I want to say sincerely, thank you, thank you for your service. But I also need to thank your family, relatives, and close friends who are here today for their moral and emotional support. This line of work we know requires a certain level of sacrifice, not just from the officers, but from all of you as well. We recognize it and we appreciate it.
I'm proud to see you take on more responsibilities in your new positions. Congratulations. Congratulations and thank you for your service.